Like many other browns I know, my name seems to bring out the worst in other people. When I taught elementary school in Brooklyn, an older colleague insisted on calling me “Ms. R.” “I don’t mean to offend,” he explained, “but if I try saying your last name, I know I’ll just sound silly.” Well, now you just sound like an idiot, I thought. A similar encounter occurred during my first week of graduate school, when the Dean approached me and introduced herself. I told her my name, and she asked, “Why couldn’t your parents just name you Molly or Jane?” Yes, I know, Naina Ramajayan…so difficult to pronounce, that even I just call myself ‘The N.’ It’s all pretty ironic, actually; considering that I’m a southie Hindu, my name is about as simple as it gets.
Thankfully, the baggage that comes with my name is fairly harmless, and I’m able to laugh it off. No one has ever looked at my name and suggested that I be targeted for homeland security. Some of my friends from college, however, haven’t been as lucky. When my friend Rahul Shah introduced himself to his co-worker a while ago, she responded, “Like, as in, the Shah of Iran, that Holocaust denier?” (Oh yes, she did.) Another friend felt pressured to start using his middle name at work because his boss joked that his first name, Amit, sounded like ‘Ahmed.’ And so what if does? “Dude,” he explained, “Three of the 9-11 hijackers were named Ahmed.” Amit, Ahmed, Shah, Iran…looks like the code is finally getting cracked.
I used to think these issues concerning names were a burden only for us brown people. But then I learned that Senator Barack Obama of Illinois is in a similar predicament. CNN did a nice story a few weeks ago (you can view the clip here) on the “controversy” surrounding the Senator’s name. Since Obama rhymes with Osama, Barack rhymes with Iraq (and Chirac), and Hussein is his middle name, he’s evidently a newly-discovered threat to the United States. After watching that clip, I felt guilty for thinking my buddy Amit was just being paranoid of his boss all these years. In fact, now I’m even more paranoid than I ever was before. Of rampant stupidity, that is. Aasif Mandvi appeared on the Daily Show on Tuesday night to bring his perspective on Obama-Osama-gate.
My favorite line: Aasif Mandvi? Yikes, I sound like trouble. People, keep your eye on me.
Jokes aside, I have to wonder: if Barack’s name — or any of our names, for that matter — rhymed with McVeigh, Rudolph, or Kaczynski, would any of this even be a topic of discussion?
Whiteguy does have a good point that America needs one main culture. I don’t like hip-hop or country music, but to me both are american culture. Just like 22 days from now is one the best things about american culture called the Super Bowl which is the most American day of them all.
One of my favorite things about American culture is sports. there would be no better weekend then in Chicago area in September when on friday you can go to Wrigley Field to see the Cubs, Saturday go east to South Bend to see the Fighting irish of Notre Dame and on Sunday go north to see the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau field. You have 3 of the best places to watch sports in America and it would be more then just to see the games.
Bored — correct, Toronto is in Ontario. But the Hmong gangs are in Calgary and Edmonton. And you said: “Secondly, our homicide rate is still less than a third of the American one.”
Have patience, you’re narrowing the gap every year!
Sakshi — “supposed to be active”? The National Liberation Front of Tripura has killed 11,000 people — they sound pretty active to me!
Not some, most of them are. Harmonious are not but definitely India will not be splitting apart among ethnic lines. Remember 7/11 bombing last year. The western media was crying out “ooooh there is going to be ethnic cleansing”. On the other hand people were helping each other. And the slum dwellers were helping the first class travellers.
Heterogeneity is the reality of life. Homogeneity is an idiotic pipe dream. Even your children and your siblings are a far cry from being homogeneous. An ideal socio-political system would have to recognize this fact of life. Ideal Religions too have to be based on this recognition of innate diversity.
Perhaps only a true World Government will be able to achieve such unity in diversity.
Exactly. So race is far more important in America than your name….as if we didnt all know that.
Desis can take on proper american first names all they want but they will still be handicapped in the route to assimilation by their color and other racial characteristics, just as african-americans were. Desi hindus, muslims and sikhs are handicapped even further by their religions.
Thanks MyTake. I suspected most of them were pretty harmless but had no way of knowing. I take it you think the Khalistan issue is not likely to lead to a separate state. Good, but what about the American Southwest…
WG, Our handgun homicide rate is one fifteenth the US rate. That’s a big gap to make up. As Michael Moore pointed out, Canada just does not have the same culture of violence. The Canadian culture is generally extremely conciliatory and consensus-driven, which may be one of the reasons why we don’t have ghettoes, race riots and large demonstrations against immigrants.
That’s doesn’t look like the case to me or wiki.
Look on a wiki, I can declare that I married a Sport Illustrated model last week, and she is pregnant.
It is just broad brush, starting tool. Remember, Seigenthaler episode.
WG, People are right that except Kashmir, and do some degree Assam for separatist movements, all of them listed are third rate hacks. Even Kashmir’s separatist movements has been hugely cyclical, with the current crest seen from 90s.
Bored — you’re saying Canada’s homicide rate is about 1/3 of the U.S.’s, but your handgun homicide rate is 1/15? What do you kill people with for the other 4/15th if not guns? Molson?
OK Kush, I concede that point. But what about irredentist Aztlan…?
WhiteGuy:
You don’t give up, do you?
Tripura is one of the smallest states in India, landlocked and hilly to boot, largely dependent on agriculture. 70% of its population is from another state in India, Bengal. All Bengalis are dead against its separation from India. Do you think it has any viable chance of separation.
The current strength of ADF is estimated to be approximately 60 members. (link)
I lived in Assam for two years, where this group is supposed to be active. They resemble the mafia more than a revolutionary army of any source, and generally live off kidnapping and extortion. They used to be a serious group, but even the Assamese have given up on them now (unless there’s an Assamese here who begs to differ).
This movement died long ago. The current Prime Minister of India(corresponding to your President, in case you don’t understand) is a sikh, that is, of the community that spearheaded this movement.
Maybe because it’s one of the leading brands of “curry” paste available? Just guessing – haven’t been around here long enough to be able to understand just why.
I’m sure there are a lot of desi people whose names are mispronounced – but my take is it’s got more to do with the person doing it. For instance, I work in New York, and I don’t think any of my workmates (white/black/Hispanic/Russian/Chinese – whatever) have mispronounced my name. Probably because you do get to see a lot of Indian names if you are in the tech industry, and in any case, there are tons of Indians around at work.
Bored I just checked, you were right about Canada’s homicide rate being 1/3 of the U.S.’s but you have the gun homicide rate wrong. A recent year had 165 gun murders in Canada, which would be about ten times that to get the equivalent for the U.S., call it 1,650. U.S. had about 7,500 gun murders same year, so we’re only about 5 times as more likely to kill people with guns than you, not 15.
But like I said, give it time!
Probably. In the past 60 years India has lost some territory (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Aksai Chin) but the next 60 could see India break up significantly. I predict that most of the North-Eastern states will break away from India and join ASEAN as independent states or part of Myanmar.
Holy crap, Whitey gets some late-night validation! Thanks, Truth. I’m going to go Google Aksai Chin.
Good night my brown brothers and sisters! I enjoyed our discussion.
Signed,
Whitey McHonkerton
Tip for WhiteGuy: Aksai Chin is uninhabited.
WG,
Hmm, and I was giving some serious thought to your Molson theory. OD’ing on caffeine (via Tim Horton’s) is a more likely method.
Nah, we won’t catch up. I’m not sure why, but we just don’t like fighting. It may have to do with the fact of Quebec. When a quarter of your population is a linguistic minority, culturally distinct and a ‘founding nation’, you better damn well learn to compromise. As our poet Earle Birney wrote ‘We English and French, never lost our civil war, we endure it to this day, a bloody civil bore…’
I consider myself – strongly – Canadian. But I keep my desi name and make sure people pronounce it properly. There’s no incompatibility between the two.
Ouch. Seriously.
In the past, I’ve had a hard time spelling and pronouncing a Thai last names like – Laohavanich; thankfully the ‘victim’ was never offended even a bit.
Our entire team from India me included, had a hard time pronouncing the Hinduish names of our Indonesian coworkers.
I still trying to figure out how to pronounce the names (correctly of course) of several of my coworkers from countries like China, Poland, Czech, Belarus etc.
In turn, most of them have a hard time saying or spelling my full name. I find it humorous when people struggle with that, which usually lasts a few seconds, and the conversation moves on to other topics. I see no reason to be offended. FYI, people of all continents and races have difficulty in pronouncing my name as it should be. It’s not just the southern white people as stressed by some.
In summary, it’s give and take. Butcher some, get butchered some.
Bye.
Something hilarious – http://bbthots.blogspot.com/2007/01/tamil-into-english.html
Tamil speakers will be able to appreciate it even more.
In an American Conservative article, Steve Sailer agrees that multiculturalism creates a deep sense of mistrust in both your neighbors and in your local institutions, and suggests two techniques to keep the nation coherent (which will allow it to endure):
1) Attract high IQ immigrants. High IQ immigrants are unlikely to riot, will likely intermarry quickly, and thus are unlikely to secede. The Army has always enlisted based on IQ score (all blacks, whites and ethnics in the millitary have an average IQ score above 100) and its had a wonderful history.
2) Christist nationalism: What unites 90% of Americans, despite race, is Christianity, and that will perhaps be the one coherent basis of “nation” and “culture” here in the future. This is a likely strategy, as I doubt any nation can exist on abstract principles like “rule of law” and “fair play” and “secularism” alone.
I dunno. This page really depresses me sometimes. Some of you are really insecure.
Apologies for our collective racial angst.
but there will always be some clueless wonder who thinks it’s okay to bash southerners, whites, whatever, while sounding outrage at racism against their favored group. I thought it was all bad?
Thank God for Aunt Jamila’s defense of the beleaguered white race in America. All you macacas need to stop hating on whites.
On the backs of slavery and native american genocide. Even the constitution has it’s roots in Native American tradition: Ben Franklin, genius that he was, spent time observing Iriquois traditions , saying “It would be a strange thing if six nations of savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such a union and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages and appears insoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies”
The early “settlers” had very little inkling towards any sort of democratic tradition, spending nearly a 1000 years prior in monarchies and religious intolerance – something which they brought over with them. The six nations indeed provided significant contributions to the framework set forth in the bill of rights [link]
Now listen. IÂ’ve had enough of you Hindus making me shit my pants by giving your children non-native non Anglo-Saxon names. You must understand, itÂ’s not the calling your children by Sanskrit derived monikers that causes resentment, itÂ’s the fact that I shit myself and have to wash the skidmarks out of my underpants afterwards with your dogged refusal to assimilate to my satisfaction that leads to resentment. And after the oppression of Anglo-Saxonian males that is strangling us incrementally, this plot to destroy the white race has been uncovered, you multicultural bastards naming children in a Pakistani style is provocative indeed and a sign of disloyalty and the end of the white race in a mist of Asiatic / Hispanic / Negroid slaughter and constitutional genocide.
Stop causing resentments!
We are under threat from the non-natives and itÂ’s not funny anymore!
Not laughing now are you?
Hail High Caucasian Birth Rates!
I thought the same thing until recently due to various experiences. One very bengali Bengali friend of mine stated that Americans, though maybe not highly “cultured”, are simple and kind-hearted, open and friendly – especially those over 50. He’s travelled quite a bit and found Europeans to be proud, arrogant, elitist and self-segregated onto their own. His words.
After my stint in the deep south, bible-belt, I have to say that I agree with his perception of people over 50 there. Yeah, they know only their religion. But even with that they are just downright sweet people.
I think people who spend a few weeks travelling somewhere and come to conclusions about entire nations and groups of people are pretty stupid and narrow minded themselves. Because you know, everywhere has insularity and rednecks amongst the good and beautiful. Having lived in Europe and spent time in America I hate it when people chat like that about either place, and those oh-so-cultured, hedged, qualified and seemigly sophisticated appraisals of society gleaned from the basis of limited interactions are usually just reflections of the tellers own pre-conceived prejudices.
Personally I don’t like blanket statements about any country(or in this continent). I disagree that Americans are ignorant and insensitive, and I don’t share the opinion that Europeans in general are insular and arrogant. There are good and bad people everywhere.
Personally I think it also goes too far to jump on people for some small mispronounciation. These are petty matters and it’s useless getting angry over them.
I know! Like that sweet guy Byron de la Beckwith. I was so sad when he died. He was a real Southern Gentleman. It says so here. And that darling Edgar Ray Killen. A downright sweet man!
Amen. I love both Europe and America, and if you go around looking for American idiocy and arrogance, or European insularity, you will find it —- even in your breakfast cereal, because that’s all you can think of. But it’s more a reflection of you than anything else. I used to have (subtle) stereotypes about Germany until I spent a summer there and it’s a great place.
I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with Germans. They’re great people.
Not all white people in the south are like Byron de la Beckwith or Edgar Ray Killen. I have spend time there and I never had any problems.
“Not all white people in the south are like Byron de la Beckwith or Edgar Ray Killen. I have spend time there and I never had any problems.”
“I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with Germans. They’re great people.”
This isn’t the point. Both of these regions have historically been petri dishes for hatred, intolerance and bigotry. One person reporting back with “not having any problems” doesn’t mean the region as a whole still has work to do in order to change its image. Bemoaning the confederate flag is their “heritage” is a small example, if the south wants to flush its checkered past, purging the confederate flag is one of many steps.
From reading several of you posts on this topic, I don’t think you like white people.
I knew this charge would be levied at some point. And to close it out, let me tell you how powerful white word view and socializatio n is. I took the implicit association test for race (white vs black) If you’ve never heard of it, check it out here. Now you’d think a white-hating, poor southern man bashing, scape-goat everything on the whitey, reverse racist like myself would easily show preference for black (or anything non-white) correct?
Wrong. My results for the test is was “slight preference for white”
But thank you for playing bullsh*t assumption of the week, we have some great parting gifts for you.
Another thing I noticed about the deep south is ALOT more inter-racial love going down then you see in the North. The neighborhoods and schools were much more integrated, thus resulting in more integrated love amongst the young and alot of older folks (again over 50) were also happily settled into inter-racial marriages with kids and grandkids.
Whereas in the North I saw a bit of that, but not as much as in the south. And in the North I’ve seen mostly black males with white females but in the South it was more white men with black women.
HMF wrote:
“Both of these regions [Germany and the U.S. South] have historically been petri dishes for hatred, intolerance and bigotry.”
The power of advertising! Dude, the whole of human history falls neatly under the umbrella of being a “petri dish for hatred, intolerance and bigotry.” The answer was illuminated by Dawkins in “The Selfish Gene”: humans, like all life, are vessels for DNA, and we aim to help those whose DNA is most like our own (family, tribe, nation), often at the expense of those whose DNA is less like our own. Looking at that as hatred and bigotry and intolerance isn’t seeing it for its prime motive, which is positive (promoting one’s own DNA’s chances), not negative (hurting unrelated or more-distantly related people). Not that the negative effects to others don’t occur when human tectonic plates brush up against each other, but hurting others isn’t the main motivation. So, your outrage at the U.S. South and Germany is selective here.
Clueless, I don’t think it’s fair to say that HMF doesn’t like white people. He’s probably had a lot of Howard Zinn shoved down his throat by college profs like I did. It takes a while to unlearn that crap, give him a break.
hmmm, most desi people i know never give their kids names like that, even if want Anglo names. I’m sorry, but those names are very white, i can’t say it any differently.
most american/canadian/uk desis i know who decide to give their kid more english names, go with names like: Jasmina Jasmine Meena Monica Carina Ruby Vicky or Vick Cameron Jesse John Tony (Anthony)
these names aren’t too “white washed”, but still fit in. And some are similar to desi names.
I don’t know if this is off topic, but Japan it the 1st world country very little immigration. Last year recall reading somewhere Japan 15 refugess accepted and one of there minsters saying that they don’t want immigrants cause they don’t want a mess like Europe.
Where is the outrage of this racist views, cause if somebody in Denmark or Sweden said the same things there would be an outrage.
I meant to say Japan only accepted 15 aslylum seekers all year.
Sometimes I’ve witnessed that the people to harp on and on about this type of stuff are the people who, for whatever reasons, failed to win friends and influence people. Usually they don’t fair too well with the opposite gender either, which leads them to feel lonely and frustrated. This in turn leads to alot of angst.
People from wherever who manage to attract people to them with either great looks or charisma, usually feel totally welcomed and at home here.
Of course this isn’t every case, just an observation of alot of cases I’ve seen.
If that was directed at HMF, that was a very cheap shot.
It wasn’t.
Just an observation and my own personal experience in life also.
Wherever I go, if I am able to win friends and influence people, resulting in a feeling of acceptance and belonging, I usually feel good about the place and it’s people.
Your individual experiences exonerate Germany from its crimes against humanity, right? Here we see the irrationality of using personal anecdotes to overrule history itself!
Did you know that among Hitler’s untermenschen victims were 100s of thousands of gypsies…..who supossedly originated in northwest India?
Why are we desi on this board able to judge Germany or the American south.
What have we desi done to fight racism and caste racism back in the homeland. Since most of us in the west sikh, hindu or muslim who come from families in India who near the top of the caste system.
I bet most of those lower caste people in India would have it much better in Germany or the American south then they would in India in the year 2007.
We disproportionally kill those whose DNA is most like our own. Just look at the massive slaughter of the Thirty Years War, WW I and WW II in Europe for example. Whites have killed more of each other than they have killed non-whites. Ditto for every other race.
Unless Dawkins thinks genocidal killing is “helpful” to the victims, his thesis is fundamentally flawed.
No doubt. Another strike against Dawkin’s thesis that “we aim to help those whose DNA is most like our own”.
Door,
Here’s a thought experiment if you want to see crimes against humanity: pick up an almanac (I’m doing it now) and pick three countries at random (I just did it and got Ukraine, Tanzania, and Guyana). Then go to wikipedia and read the histories of those countries, and you will find shocking crimes against humanity.
Ukraine was a fortuitous choice, since that’s a fine example — few people know that Stalin killed between five and seven million Ukrainians in the early 1930s. Starved them to death with an intentional famine. Nice.
Let’s see Tanzania — “Little is known of the history of Tanganyika’s interior during the early centuries. The area is believed to have been inhabited originally by ethnic groups using a click-tongue language similar to that of Southern Africa’s Bushmen and Hottentots. Although remnants of these early tribes still exist, most were gradually displaced by Bantu farmers migrating from the west and south and by Nilotes and related northern peoples.”
In other words, the Bantus who populate Tanzania now only got their land because they committed genocide against the original inhabitants. Be glad no one wrote that early history down, it wouldn’t have been good dinner material.
And now Guyana: before Europeans came to commit genocide (or, more accurately, to claim land – the genocide was not the primary goal, the main Indians they encountered were the Arawak, the long canoe-wielding badasses who had, you know, conquered (killed + raped + enslaved) so many other tribes in the Caribbean region. Again, be glad they didn’t have a written language to write down all the crazy shiznit they inflicted on other tribes, but you can be sure it was every bit as pleasant as Nazi Germany and Jim Crow.
I don’t know much about India’s early history, but why do I think I’d find the same genocides etc. if I hopped over to the wikipedia page on History of India? Because as Stevie and Paul sang:
“We all know That people are the same Wherever you go”
Signed,
Whitey McWonderbread
But Door, there are finer distinctions than race — in descending order, race, nation, tribe, family. Interest battles aren’t always race vs race (it usually wasn’t historically, because the races weren’t even in contact with each other).
Nation vs. nation intra-racial battles like Japan vs. China or Germany vs. England is WWII are common as well. So this buttresses Dawkins’ theory (it’s closer to a law now actually! he wrote it in the 1970s) that the most relevant unit of human matter is the DNA strand. Churchill wanted war with Germany because he was worried they would attack England. Dawkins would understand, though perhaps not approve.
Last time I was in India was 1996, but wasn’t the main TV channel called Doordarshan.
Pretty wide strike zone, Door!
Anyway, I have ancestors who fought on both sides in the Civil War, so I feel justified in telling India — a petri dish of racial bigotry, caste hatred, and ethnic oppression and violence — what precisely it needs to do to grovel for moral acceptance in my book. There will be many steps, and it will be a long, hard road of atonement, but if the people of India accept that their land has a history of racial hatred it needs to atone for, I may someday forgive them.
See how silly that sounds?
You would think that Steve Sailer would have learned something from the Thirty Years War which pitted christian catholics and christian protestants against each other and resulted in one-third of all german-speakers in Europe being wiped out, before talking of “Christist nationalism”. Besides, the United States was founded as a rejection of such theocratic tendencies: the prominent Founders of America weren’t even christians, they were Deists who insisted strongly on the separation between church and state.
Similarly you would think that Sailer would have learned from the jewish Holocaust that “high IQ immigrants” aren’t necessarily assimilable. Besides, unlike the intelligent ashkenazi jews who were unassimilable in Germany, Poland, Russia etc, indians are tested as being well below the global average in IQ. High IQ people are therefore a scarce resource in India. Its obscenely selfish to suck in the scarce resources of an impoverished, backward country like India for the marginal benefit of a wealthy, advanced nation like America that has far more of said resource.